Kylea Taylor, M.S., LMFT, found two gaps in ethics education in the early 1990s while simultaneously studying to be a Marriage and Family Therapist and working as a senior trainer at the Grof Transpersonal Training where she assisted Stanislav Grof in training practitioners of Holotropic Breathwork®. Kylea observed that working with clients in non-ordinary states of consciousness requires different ethical awarenesses. She drew upon the tenets of several of the great religions to create InnerEthics™, a model for ethical self-reflection. The model clarifies the unique ethical territory of understanding and working skillfully with people who are experiencing profound and extra-ordinary states of consciousness and also provides a scaffolding for recognizing our semi-conscious, inner motivations as practitioners, teachers, and caregivers in order to avoid client and student harm and increase client and student benefit. Her book, The Ethics of Caring: Finding Right Relationship With Clients for Profound, Transformative Work in Our Professional Healing Relationships, illuminates transference, countertransference, power dynamics, dual relationship, and other topics important to relational ethics. The book won the 2017 Nautilus Book Award in the category, “Relationships & Communication.”
Kylea teaches, writes, and consults about ethics. She is also currently President and co-founder of SoulCollage Inc., which since 2003 has been training facilitators worldwide to share an expressive arts method that promotes deep self-discovery, individually and in community. Kylea’s focus as a therapist has been on assisting clients in integrating the meaning and extra-ordinary gifts of spiritual emergence, awakening or transpersonal experiences, and what she calls “personal paradigm shift” phenomena.
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Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.
Summary and transcript of this interview
Interview recorded May 18, 2019.
YouTube Video Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction to Kylea Taylor and InnerEthics
00:03:14 - The Importance of Inner Motivations in Ethics
00:07:14 - Changing the Culture: A Mission for Ethical Behavior
00:10:29 - Development and Impediments in Different Ways
00:13:36 - Right Relationship and Learning from Mistakes
00:16:56 - The Interconnectedness of All Beings
00:20:24 - An Ethical Crisis in the Spiritual Community
00:24:14 - The Importance of Discernment in Spiritual Teachers
00:27:26 - Peer Supervision and the Johari Window
00:31:22 - The Importance of Self-Reflection for Teachers
00:34:39 - Power dynamics in spiritual communities
00:38:27 - Ethical Fading and the Detriment to Clients
00:42:01 - The Rajneesh community and the ethics of the student
00:45:13 - The Importance of Protection, Permission, and Connection
00:49:28 - Healing from Spiritual Wounding and Trauma
00:53:27 - Non-traditional therapy for PTSD
00:57:47 - Trusting the Inner Healer in Psychedelic Therapy
01:01:29 - Holotropic Breathwork and Psychedelics Comparison
01:05:33 - The Mechanics of Holotropic Breathwork and Prana Awakening
01:09:12 - A Powerful Kundalini Opening
01:13:07 - Caution in Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness
01:16:25 - Moving towards positive change with #MeToo movement
01:20:01 - Types of Individuals Who Might Benefit from Self-Reflection
01:23:51 - Learning from Mistakes and Apologizing
01:27:08 - Redemption and Transformation
01:31:10 - The InnerEthics Model and Self-Reflection
01:35:15 - Switching Hats: Finding Balance in Therapy
01:38:46 - The Importance of Ethics in Spiritual Development
01:42:21 - Different Experiences in Spiritual Emergence
01:46:06 - Surrendering Control
01:49:45 - Justification through illusion